New England(508 collections)SCUA

James Shearer Daybook, 1836-1838.

During the late 1830s, James Shearer operated a general store near Palmer, Massachusetts, trading in the gamut of dry goods and commodities that made up the country trade in Massachusetts, from dried fish, butter, rum, and brandy, to soap, nails, chalk, cloth, sugar, molasses, spices, coffee, and tea. Although some customers paid their accounts in cash, most appear bartered goods (e.g, with butter) or services (carting).

The Shearer daybook contains detailed records the transactions of a general store located in or near Palmer, Mass., during the years surrounding the financial panic of 1837. The volume is attributed to Shearer based on a single signature on the last page of the volume, closing out a lengthy account with J. Sedgwick. Although Shearer cannot be identified with certainty, it appears likely that he was a member of the prolific Shearer family of Palmer in Hampden County.

Subjects

General stores--Massachusetts--Palmer

Palmer (Mass.)--History

Contributors

Shearer, James

Types of material

Sirius Community Collection, 1979-2003.

2 boxes (3 linear feet).Call no.: MS 835

Founded in September 1978, Sirius is an intentional community in Shutesbury, Mass., built on four foundational pillars: spiritual, ecological, communitarian, and educational. Established by former members of the Scottish Findhorn Community, Sirius is rooted in a non-sectarian spirituality and practices consensus in the community governance process and in their shared vision of an ecologically sustainable future.

The Sirius collection contains a nearly complete run of the commune newsletter along with a selection of fliers and brochures about the community, and a small number of newsclippings and photographs.

Subjects

Communal living--Massachusetts

Sustainability

Types of material

Stephen Siteman Papers, 1942-1998.

A member of the Post War World Council, an ardent pacifist, and anti-imperialist, Stephen Siteman was a long-time member of the Socialist Party of America, serving for seventeen years as secretary to the party’s leader Norman Thomas. In his late teens, Siteman was imprisoned as a conscientious objector during World War II. Although he was later pardoned, his time as a prisoner led him into active involvement in prison reform and the peace movement.

During his long involvement in the Socialist Party, Siteman collected a large quantity of material relating to important socialist issues, including Socialist Reform, the peace movement, conscientious objection, and prison reform. The collection also includes a small selection of Siteman’s personal correspondence with Frank Zeidler, former Socialist mayor of Milwaukee, and the novelist Mark Harris.

Blake Slonecker Collection, 2008.

An historian of twentieth century social movements, Blake Slonecker received his doctorate at the University of North Carolina in 2009 and joined the history faculty at Waldorf College soon thereafter. In a dissertation examining the utopian impulses of the New Left (published in 2012 as A new dawn for the New Left: Liberation News Service, Montague Farm, and the long sixties), Slonecker explored how the political and cultural activism of the 1960s helped reshape American political culture in the decade following.

In June 2008, Slonecker conducted oral historical interviews with four individuals who were part of the extended community centered on the Montague Farm and Packer Corners communes during the late 1960s: Tom Fels, Charles Light, Sam Lovejoy, and Richard Wizansky. In wide-ranging interviews, the former communards discuss topics ranging from the fraught politics of the era, political and cultural activism, gender roles and sexuality, and daily life on the communes.

Smith & Wesson Records, 1920-1973.

World famous handgun and handcuff-manufacturing company founded in Springfield, Massachusetts in the 1850s.

The Smith and Wesson records are comprised of incoming sales and service correspondence with some outgoing correspondence and administrative and financial/legal subject files, including categories such as ads and advertising, American Railway Express, audits, counselors at law, debtors, insurance, legal actions, newsletters, patents and trademarks, personnel, photos, sample parts, sideline ventures, stocks and bonds awards, and Western Union Telegrams. Includes correspondence with the National Rifle Association, Small Arms Industry Advisory Committee, and the United States Revolver Association.

Gilbert Smith and Gilbert Smith, Jr. Account Books, 1798-1846.

Gilbert Smith was a shoemaker and doctor from New Marlborough, Massachusetts, and his son Gilbert Jr. was a prosperous farmer from Sheffield, Massachusetts. Includes merchandise sales, labor accounts, lists of boarders, and documentation of the sale of homemade butter and cheese to local merchants, as well as trade with the substantial rural black community of the region.

Contributors

Types of material

Lewis Smith Account Book, 1784-1828.

3 folders (0.15 linear feet).Call no.: MS 085 bd

Lewis Smith of South Hadley, Massachusetts kept a sporadic record of his business and personal credits and debits from 1784-1828. Smith ran a cider mill along a river, possibly the Connecticut. In his papers he mentions buying a part ownership in a sawmill in 1790. Smith also sold large amounts of hides, meat, tallow, lard, and soap, and he had a sizeable farm where he grew rye, barley, wheat, hay and raised cattle, pigs, and sheep.

Subjects

Farmers--Massachusetts--South Hadley

South Hadley (Mass.)--History

Types of material

W.R. Smith Papers, 1914-1947.

W.R. Smith was a Vice President and organizer for the International Brotherhood of Papers Makers (I.B.P.M.) who principally attempted to gain union conditions for papers workers near Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Includes letters to and from I.B.P.M. president James T. Carey as well as a 116-page transcript of Smith’s organizing reports for the years 1914-1920, documenting his activities in Holyoke, Massachusetts, among other cities and towns in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington.

Subjects

Holyoke (Mass.)--Economic conditions--20th century

International Brotherhood of Paper Makers

Kalamazoo (Mich.)--Economic conditions--20th century

Kalamazoo (Mich.)--Social conditions--20th century

Labor unions--Massachusetts

Labor unions--Organizing--United States--History--20th century

Labor unions--United States--Officials and employees--History--20th century

Contributors

Ephraim Snow Daybook, 1822-1878.

1 vol. (0.25 linear feet).Call no.: MS 198 bd

This unique double entry daybook, dated 1822-1878, offers an intimate glimpse into the lively shipbuilding and whaling village of Mattapoisett as these industries peaked and begin to decline. The book chronicles the labor, poetry, drawings, and letters of Ephraim Snow, a true Jack of all trades, who performed multifarious repairs, odd jobs, carpentry, and ship finish work and took boarders in his home. Interspersed throughout the accounts are pen and ink drawings and romantic poetry and letters, often replete with social commentary.